Peter Finch as Howard Beale in Network

Keith Olbermann talks to Steve Schmidt on The Warning podcast about what happened to broadcast news. This is a fascinating conversation between two important voices in the current fight to save American democracy.

Olbermann:

“If you’ve seen the movie Network [I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore] the great film about what happens of course when a newscaster either goes crazy or gets the word of God implanted in his head and begins to almost speak biblical tongues…it was considered one of the great prophecies film from about 1976 and it hinged on one thing happening…

The news divisions of the television networks used to be sacrosanct in terms of business.. if they made some money that was great if they lost 30 million dollars a year that was great… that was the price that the people who ran ABC, CBS and NBC paid for the right to broadcast Beverly Hillbillies and Captain Kangaroo and the other shows that might not be up to the intellectual level of See It Now or 60 Minutes or anything on the news… and the movie Network hinges on the idea that at some point the networks would say this is crazy we’re not going to lose 300 million dollars over 10 years so we can have a reporter standing by at all times at the Vatican it makes no sense… and the day that they made that decision then every decision after that would be monetarily based and they would simply try to get the largest audience and I know it’s kind of difficult to explain to people that there was once television that was based on not getting the largest audience, that you were fulfilling some sort of public service.. but the moment that was turned off this would follow..”